More Than Enough
by tielan
Summary: He found himself watching her, more than once, although he caught himself before anything as unwary as actual admiration sprang up. Bates POV


**NOTES**: Written for the LJ community 'sgaflashfic' during their 'Voyeur' challenge.**  
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**More Than Enough**

"So...what's Teyla teaching you, sir?"

Sheppard paused in the middle of hauling off his shirt, glanced at the open, honest face of Captain Wagland, then at the assorted expressions of the men around him and answered with a single syllable. "Fighting."

Around the room, various smirks were exchanged among the men. David Olson arched a brow at Stephen Bates and mouthed, _'Fighting_?'

Bates wasn't all that inclined to believe it either. While Teyla's people had left Atlantis - one less thing for his security personnel to worry about - Teyla herself remained on Atlantis, and firmly in the good graces of both her team-mates and Dr. Weir, none of whom seemed to care that she wasn't one of them.

"With all due respect, sir," the Captain said, "don't you already know how to fight?"

Only Jimmy Wagland could have said it with a straight face and an honest query in his voice. Any other man would have cracked up in the middle of it, but Wagland said it without so much as blink of the eye.

Not that Sheppard was fooled. The t-shirt was tossed into the locker, and he turned towards the Captain, setting his shoulders. "If you're trying to ask if we're screwing," he said in a voice that walked a thin line of anger, "then the first answer is 'none of your damn business' and the second answer is 'no'. And if I hear that anything has been said or implied, either to Teyla's face or behind her back," he added, with a glance around the room, "then the culprit or culprits will be on punishment detail for a month."

He yanked out his towel, closed the locker with a definite click, and went to take his shower.

There were a few raised eyebrows, a sniggered comment, and most of the men shrugged and went back to their work. "Jumping the gun a bit, wasn't he?" Olson noted as he dried himself off.

Bates shrugged. "Can't say he had it wrong, though." The Athosian woman and her presence in Atlantis was a subject of much speculation among the men - especially since she'd managed to gain trust in the highest echelons of the expedition.

"She's a looker."

"She's an alien," Bates answered. It wasn't that he was a suspicious bastard. It was just that...he was a suspicious bastard. And Teyla rubbed him up the wrong way with her formality, and her assurance, and the watchful way she regarded the Atlantis expedition. Her people looked at the city and were amazed; Teyla studied the people of Earth with a more wary attitude, although she still admired Atlantis.

Olson grinned. "You weren't at the SGC when that Tok'ra woman came through a few years back, were you?"

"No, but I was there when the Jaffa chicks came in to try the tretonin," Bates replied. He, like all the other men of the base, had done his share of ogling - surreptitiously, of course. The women were obviously used to warmer climates - and used to distrusting men. "Aliens are aliens. We had enough trouble with them at the SGC."

"We're having enough trouble with them now," said Olson. "Mind you, I wouldn't mind getting in a bit of trouble with Teyla." His cheerfully lascivious grin faded when he caught sight of Bates' expression.

"He wishes," quipped someone else a little further over.

"Dream on, Dave," Mark Timms said, hauling a clean shirt over his head. "She'll kick your ass from here to the mainland."

"That's enough," Bates said, quelling the conversation.

"Come on, Bates," someone protested. "You're not the slightest bit curious about what alien women are like in the sack?"

Bates kicked off his boots and dumped them in the locker. "No. Because I know that, in or out of the sack, alien women are trouble." Teyla Emmagen was a prime example of that.

He didn't participate in further conversations about the women on the base, although he listened with half an ear. Most of the men seemed to think that nothing had happened yet, but that it was only a matter of time.

"Sergeant?" Jimmy Wagland again, open and innocent as the bookie who's just assured you even odds. "What do you think?"

He glanced around as he picked up his towel. "I think that the Major will have our asses if this conversation is still going when he gets out of the showers."

There were sighs of exasperation and more than a few faces, but the guys seemed willing to let the matter drop.

Of course, that didn't mean Bates was going to let the matter drop - at least when it came to Sheppard.

Sheppard was getting dressed when Bates got out of the shower. The locker rooms were largely empty; most of the men had already cleaned up and headed out to dinner.

"Sergeant."

"Major."

Colonel Sumner had been suspicious of the Major; mostly because of Sheppard's history of insubordination and the way he'd been included on the expedition. It was one thing to work with people you knew and trusted; another to have an officer who could go rogue if the orders he was given contravened what he thought should be done.

There was no room for wildcards in the military.

"So," Sheppard said, tossing his towel into a bag, "are you going to bring out the reasons why I shouldn't be sparring with Teyla?"

Bates glanced up, met the intent hazel gaze, and went back to drying off. "No, sir."

"Why not?"

"Because I was wondering whether she'd be willing to teach me."

That got the response he was expecting. Sheppard stared at him, distrust warring with amusement. "You were thinking Teyla would teach you?"

There wasn't any need to make it sound so improbable. "Yes, sir. If you wouldn't mind asking."

Sheppard looked like he very much minded. But all the other man said was, "I'll ask."

"Thank you, sir."

Bates considered the Major's reactions as he dried off and dressed in the now-quiet room.

Something about Sheppard's behaviour towards this 'sparring' was off. His behaviour was secretive, almost possessive. If the man intended to make people believe that there was nothing going on between him and Teyla, he wasn't doing a very good job of it.

Atlantis couldn't afford to have their senior military officer compromised by a physical - and possibly emotional - relationship with someone whose primary objectives they didn't know at all. Teyla had a remarkable gift for survival in the face of the Wraith; one might almost say an uncanny ability. And Bates didn't trust the woman as far as he could throw her, all the more since she seemed to have gotten in under the guard of not only Major Sheppard, but also Dr. Weir.

No, Stephen Bates didn't know what was going on between Major Sheppard and Teyla Emmagen, but it was more than just fighting.

So when Sheppard came back to him after dinner with the one-word answer, "No," Bates wasn't surprised.

He said nothing about it to the other men, of course. He quelled their discussions when he overheard them, but didn't voice an opinion on the matter. And when the news filtered back that Major Sheppard and the Athosian were doing their 'sparring' in a room that was both out of the usual traffic routes through the city, and just beyond the beat held by the security forces, Bates didn't say a thing.

The men were saying more than enough on their own.

However, he _did_ follow a slightly different course through the city the next time he was in that area while Sheppard and Teyla were holding their 'sparring session'.

It wasn't spying. It was just...happening to go into the room beside the one where they were fighting.

It seemed they _were_ just fighting. Although, in Sheppard's case, it wasn't so much fighting as being beaten up.

She was good. Bates gave her that. She kicked the Major's ass quite thoroughly in the space of a few minutes. That was about as much as Stephen could stomach, and he left them at it. If Sheppard's ego could take it, far be it for him to intercede.

Still, that didn't explain the way the Major got cagey every time the topic came up after.

Just for that, Bates dropped by the gym periodically, sometimes watching for the whole session, sometimes only to glance in.

Teyla continued to kick the Major's ass, although as time went on, Sheppard developed more than enough skill to keep her at bay, instead of ending up prone on the floor. The Athosian definitely had style. Even Bates was willing admit that.

He found himself watching her, more than once, although he caught himself before anything as unwary as actual admiration sprang up. She would be a dangerous opponent if she ever became an enemy - he sensed that about her. And it was best to know what you might have to handle if things ever came down to it.

Something in him hoped it never would.

Something in him knew it would.

That something was more than triumphant when they discovered she was part-Wraith and he had to take her out with the stunner.

"Don't even suggest it," Sheppard warned Bates when he approached the Major after putting the stunner away.

Bates wasn't going to back down from this one. Not in a million years. Atlantis' hopes hung on very slender threads, and any time or effort spent on the Athosian was time taken away from the city and the people who mattered. "Sir, she's a liability."

The officer turned, his expression tight and frozen. "She's a member of my team!"

"She's part-Wraith--"

"That's not what Beckett said."

"But it's what he meant! She's got Wraith DNA--"

"A _fragment_ of Wraith DNA," Sheppard said, "which just gives her the ability--"

"--to channel the Wraith?" Bates demanded, remembering the moment he'd faced her down with the stunner in hand. In the end, all the skill in the world was no match for a decent weapon. "To kill us all? Sir, with all due respect, we're facing annihilation by the very creatures that created--"

"Bates, Teyla's as human as you or I--"

"Except for being descended from the Wraith!"

"Wraith, Ancients - what does that matter _now_?"

"It matters because she nearly got loose--"

"That was under hypnosis--"

"She didn't look all that hypnotis--"

"You're way out of line, Sergeant!"

"Then I think that's where I have to be, Major. You're not looking at this straight - you never have when it comes to her!"

Hazel eyes fixed him, hard as marble. "Do you want to come out and say it now, Bates?"

He knew better than that. "I don't know what you mean, sir."

It was dissembling and they both knew it. But Sheppard was the senior officer; he had the last word. "If you think either I or Dr. Weir are going to incarcerate Teyla for having the misfortune to be born with Wraith DNA, then you'll have to think again. She's a member of this expedition - as much as you or I or Dr. McKay or anyone else."

"I suppose that's your final word, sir?"

"It is. Do you have anything else to say - or not say?"

If he'd had any credit with John Sheppard - and he might have had a little before this - Bates knew it was gone. He knew better than to continue. His part was said, his warning given. That was all he could do.

Teyla was released to her own quarters a day or so later. There'd been no more 'invasions' into her mind by the Wraith, and Drs. Beckett and Heitmeyer were satisfied that she wasn't going to relapse.

Bates wasn't as certain as they were. So he kept a wary eye on her. He was responsible for the general security of Atlantis, after all.

So when she left to meet up with the Major in the gym that afternoon, Bates noted it, and followed behind some ten minutes later.

The clash and clatter of their weapons was audible long before he came in sight of the room. The noise alarmed him - this was no carefully choreographed fight such as the ones he'd previously witnessed. This was a torrent of attack and defence.

He jogged along the passageway to the gym, ignoring stealth in favour of speed. Trusted or not, Teyla was dangerous. Alien and foreign, different and uncanny - part-Wraith and trusted!

How much more naïve could people get?

He didn't bother with subterfuge this time, going straight to the entrance to the gym.

And stopped.

The Major was far from in trouble.

One glance showed the pair in the middle of torrent of blows, giving no quarter, taking none in return. Treated wood rang out in the confined space. The blows were given hard and fast. Teyla spun out of the way, then attacked low. Sheppard blocked her and went high. Lightning-swift, their weapons clashed and reclashed, breaths caught and arms strained.

They didn't stop.

Bates watched, transfixed as they kept going, slamming the staves against each other with relentless determination. The intensity of their fight was hypnotic; he was caught up in the midst of it.

Sweat shimmered across both forms, and the light flowing in from the far window gleamed off the surfaces of bare skin. The aura of their exertions glowed around them, as they circled, gazes locked, watching the eyes and the chest for the next move.

They didn't notice him.

Breathing became laboured, but the onslaught continued, voiceless and unceasing.

Feet booted and bare moved across the floor. Teyla's dress swirled around her as she turned and twisted. Sheppard's chest and arms flexed beneath his singlet, and the cords of his throat stood out in the fading light.

Like dancers, beating out an irregular tattoo on sticks, they moved around each other, fluid as air, solid as stone.

They were almost matched, although God only knew how Sheppard had learned this skill so fast. And in that matching, there was something as painful as a fist in the balls, exquisite as sunrise, exultant as victory, visceral as sex.

Perfection.

_Now_, Bates understood why Sheppard hadn't said anything. _Now_ he saw why the other man had treated this as though it were a private assignation.

The sight of the pair fighting in such piercing coordination - unchoreographed, unprepared, with nothing but trust in the skill of the one to protect from the other's blows...

He would rather have caught them having sex. That much, he would have understood.

This was trust; absolute and utter trust between two fighters, more than capable of killing each other should they choose. They trusted the other's capability to the point where they didn't hold back, evenly matched, perfectly balanced.

It dried out his mouth and roiled in his gut. He dragged his scattered thoughts about him and turned away.

He didn't like Teyla Emmagen. That much hadn't changed. But he wasn't going to watch this communion of skill and strength any more. As it was, he felt like a voyeur, watching something too intimate for the eyes of anyone other than the two involved.

Bates was halfway down the corridor when the clatter and clash of their staves ceased, as though at an unseen signal between them.

He might have heard a gasp of surprise, slightly breathless, as he turned to enter the next corridor.

He didn't look back.

He'd seen more than enough.

**- fin** -


End file.
